The ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers’ Band Is Being Let Go for Budget Reasons

Samantha Bergeson
·3 min read

“Late Night with Seth Meyers” will no longer feature a live band, which doesn’t bode well for “It’s Time to Ask Fred (Armisen) a Question.”

Meyers’ version of “Late Night” succeeded Jimmy Fallon’s back in 2014. Fallon’s house band The Roots followed him to “The Tonight Show,” so Meyers assembled the 8G Band, led by fellow “SNL” alum Fred Armisen. At first, Armisen was the regular drummer; he later only appeared for a week here and there due to his own busy schedule. The 8G Band’s guitarist Seth Jabour, bassist Syd Butler, and keyboardist Eli Janney were nightly staples. Armisen is still technically the bandleader.

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IndieWire has confirmed that come Season 12, debuting in September 2024, the 8G Band will no longer be part of the show. The band is exiting due to budgetary reasons.

Vulture first reported the news in an interview published with “Late Night” associate musical director and keyboardist Janney.

“Basically Seth Meyers and Mike Shoemaker, the showrunner, brought us in in person to talk about it. They expressed their regret and frustration about it,” Janney said. “They had been trying to work it out for months, but in the end NBC was adamant about where they wanted the budget to go. It’s not just the band; there’s a whole crew that works with the band, so there’s a lot of people employed. I think this was an easy way for them to cut the budget. Easy is not the right word.”

Janney continued, “There’s a lot of strong emotions. No one is happy about it. Seth has been a big champion of ours from the get-go. They couldn’t have been nicer about it. They told us probably about a month ago — maybe six weeks. That’s a good more than 90 days to figure out what’s next for us, so that’s pretty nice.”

The band has welcomed more than 300 guest drummers, Janney estimated. Armisen will be back behind the kit for the 8G Band’s final week, Janney said (and confirmed by IndieWire). Janney said there will be a “little bit of a celebration” to bid farewell to the era.

“It’s also just a sad day for ‘Late Night,’ because it’s been going for over 40 years now [of having a live band],” Janney said. “But, sadly, it’s the reality of broadcast and a shrinking market — streaming eating into this, and YouTube eating into that. Streaming is not making money, either. So budgets everywhere have been cut and cut and cut. I liken it to a Spotify moment in music, where suddenly it’s like, Nobody wants to pay for music. Music gets devalued.”

The 8G Band will still be employed to make walk-on music for the show, but the songs will not be played live.

“I’m definitely going to miss it, but I don’t have any animosity towards the show. Those guys have been taking care of us over the years in such an outrageous way. During the pandemic, we figured out a way to do it from home, and during the strike, they really took care of us,” Janney said. “Everybody knows what’s happening, and everybody’s a little bit sad about it, but we’re trying to go out on a positive note. That’s mainly what we’re doing: Trying to enjoy the time we have.”

IndieWire recently spoke with Meyers about his popular “Day Drinking” segment; Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ episode premiered on Tuesday.

Reporting by Tony Maglio.

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